Poetry | Rukhaya M.K

Category: Poetry (page 3 of 18)

Poetry Analysis: Ted Hughes’s “Wind”

Ted Hughes give us a short introduction to his poem “Wind” poem in “Poetry in the making”.

”On and off I live on a house on top of a hill in the Pennines, where the wind blows without obstruction across the tops of the moors. I have experienced some gales in that house, and here is a poem I once wrote about one of them. The grass of the fields there is a particularly brilliant watered green, and the stone walls of the enclosures that cover the hill-sides like great nets thrown over whales look coal black. The poem is simply called: Wind.”

The house referred to here is the house on top of a hill in the Pennines. The belligerent effects of the wind are underlined in the prescribed poem; as when it tends to get violent. The house is situated on top of a hill, therefore it is island-like in its solitude. The poet here describes it as a boat stranded on a stormy sea as he states: “This house has been far out at sea all night.” The pounding effects of the wind resembles that of a boat enraged at sea. The wind is so intense that it appears as though the storm is a prolonged one.…

Poetry Analysis: Ted Hughes’s “The Jaguar”

February 26, 2015 / rukhaya / 4 Comments

Ted Hughes’ “The Jaguar” is a tribute to the majesty of the animal. The eminence of the jaguar is contrasted against the insignificance of other animals. The apes yawn at their humdrum existence. Their only point of adoration is aimed at the fleas that surround them. The parrots have to screech to invite attention to themselves, as though one gets the impression that they are on fire. These shrieks are particularly aimed at the stroller with nuts. The tiger and lion appear lethargic and overcome with lassitude. Through the mechanical routine of the animals’ life, the poet seems to make a statement on the current mechanized human condition where people relegate the true meaning of life to basic biological functions.

The Boa constrictor (Boa constrictor) is a large, heavy-bodied species of snake. Its color pattern is highly variable yet distinctive. It is one of its kind. Yet, its static nature gives the impression of it being a fossil, an archeological remnant. It appears as though it has no utility value. The animals though supposed to be a source of amusement in the zoo, fail to make their presence felt. Cage after cage appears to be empty as all the animals lie in indolence.…

Poetry Analysis:Ted Hughes’s “Pike”

February 25, 2015 / rukhaya / 0 Comments

The Introduction to Ted Hughes’s “Pike” can be found in “Poetry in the making” as Hughes states:”Here, in this next poem, is one my prize catches. I used to be a very keen angler for pike, as I still am when I get the chance, and I did most of my early fishing in a quite small lake, really a large pond. This pond went down to a great depth in one place. Sometimes on hot days, we would see something like a railway sleeper lying near the surface, and there certainly were huge pike in that pond. I suppose they are even bigger by now. Recently I felt like doing some pike fishing, but in circumstances where there was no chance of it, and over the days, as I remembered the extreme pleasures of that sport, bits of the following poem began to arrive. You will see by looking at the place in my memory very hard and very carefully, and by using the words that grew naturally out of the pictures and feelings. I captured not just a pike, I captured the whole pond, including the monsters I never hooked.”

The poet emphasizes the perfection of the Pike in the first stanza.…

Poetry Analysis: Ted Hughes’ “Second Glance at a Jaguar”

February 25, 2015 / rukhaya / 0 Comments

“Second Glance at a Jaguar” from Wodwo (1967) is a companion piece to the “The Jaguar,” and should be read along with the same. Ted Hughes wrote “Second Jaguar” ten years after he wrote the first “The Jaguar.” The ‘glance’ in the title, far from being a mere glance, focuses on intricate detail.

In the “Jaguar,” Ted Hughes depicted a zoo in which animals are caged in different slots, each characterized by sluggishness and sloth. In contrast to the other languorous creatures, the jaguar holds it own, through its magnificence and sounds its existence by asserting itself. Thus, the poem “The Jaguar’ is a statement on man’s modern state of existence where people are compartmentalized into leading a mechanical life. In a machine-like state, they relegate their individuality, and function like cogs in the wheel of society and pay no heed to voice their seity.

The poem “Second Glance at a Jaguar” focusses on the animal itself. The latter lacks the co-ordination and conventional form of the former poem. The poem succeeds in the effect it makes on the reader. The poem comes across as an artist’s instinctive stroke focusing on detail. Hughes foregrounds the Jaguar and marks his deviation from the System.…

Poetry Analysis: Ted Hughes’ “The Thought Fox”

February 24, 2015 / rukhaya / 0 Comments

Ted Hughes said”that long after I am gone, as long as a copy of the poem exists, every time anyone reads it the fox will get up somewhere out of the darkness and come walking towards them.The poem appeared in Ted Hughes’s first collection, The Hawk in the Rain.

It is the most frequently anthologised of Hughes’ poems.

The midnight is chosen at the time as it is without any addition to the day, as blank as the poet’s mind itself. The time is unmarked and yet mature. The clock is alone as it is devoid of minutes and seconds, it being midnight. Further, the clock is alive as it is lonely. And there is something else that accompanies the loneliness of the clock-that is the poet’s creative conciousness. The metaphor for the poet’s fresh poetic perception is the “blank paper” where his fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:

Something more near

Though deeper within darkness

Is entering the loneliness.

Note that the poet cannot observe any star but can comprehend something that holds more promise for him. He cannot apprehend it through the senses but experience it through instinct..The image is first formless and can only be a professed feeling formless as the poetic vision of the poet itself, until it assumes concreteshape.…

Poetry Analysis:Ted Hughes’s “Snowdrop”

February 23, 2015 / rukhaya / 8 Comments

The “Snowdrop’ is a poem that is concise and precise in its imagery. The Snowdrop refers to a flowering plant with small white flowers flowering at the end of winter. The snow drop literally signifies a drop of snow that is at once emblematic of transience. Therefore, it is about the winter that approaches life and the idea of how fleeting life is.

The opening lines state that “Now is the globe shrunk tight” suggests the compression and condensation that has set in because of winter. One wonders if the writer had foreseen the impact of globalization, as he declares the same. Nevertheless, here it appears to be the effect of winter having negative consequences upon the globe. The agile mouse’s heart has become very dull ,’round’ as though it has wound around the mouse. The weasel that is busy with its red furry coat preying upon rodent-like animals, and the crow about its duty as scavenger, appear to be moulded in brass. They come across as arrested in brass. Or their sprightly movements have rendered into heavy gaits with the weight of brass. They have been arrested as if in metal, in a cold fixture. They seem to move in an outer darkness.…

Poetry Analysis: Ted Hughes’ “Six Young Men”

February 23, 2015 / rukhaya / 0 Comments

Ted Hughes’ “Six Young Men” is inspired by a photograph of six men shot at Lumb Falls near Hebden Bridge in the earlier part of the last century. All the six men were killed in the First World War. At the first reading, the poem comes across as a take on the futility of war. Particularly as Ted Hughes’ father was amongst the two percent of the regimen that had survived Newsnight Review critic Tom Paulin asserts that Ted Hughes, hailed from ‘that slightly different species’ – a generation ‘who took in the blood of the First World War with their mother’s milk, and who up to their middle age knew Britain only as a country always at war, or inwardly expecting and preparing for war…’

The poet begins by stating that the celluloid holds the six men well. They were permanently held, but in this ephemeral photograph. It holds them together as well. Though it has been four decades now and the photograph has become ochre-tinged,it has nor wrinkled the face or hands. And this is particularly significant, as the face is primarily considered as the identity of the person. Nevertheless time has advanced so much that their cocked hats are not fashionable now.…

Poetry Analysis: Thom Gunn’s “Touch”

February 22, 2015 / rukhaya / 0 Comments

Thom Gunn’s “Touch” is the titular poem of the collection. As in “The Corridor,” Gunn juxtaposes the complementary themes of isolation and companionship. The loose syllabic verse incorporated in the poem depicts the feeling of comfort that the poet experiences beside his companion. The word ‘touch’ in the title is utilized as an therapeutic metaphor for the underlying instinct. The poet speaks of giving in to inherent instincts. This is perhaps what Martin Dodsworth called Gunn’s “voluntary commitment to the irrational.”

The poet, as he lowers himself besides his companion, states how his skin is numb with “the restraint of habits.”He is socially conditioned to refraining from giving in to his instincts. He describes this attribute as ’patina’. On metal, patina is a coating of various chemical compounds such as oxides or carbonates formed on the surface during exposure to the elements (weathering). Therefore it may signify the thin coating of the rational sophisticated self that is only a thin film away from the natural irrational being. The word “patina” hails from Latin for “shallow dish.” Therefore, figuratively, it may allude to the poet’s shallow self that does not allow himself to explore his own depths. The exterior appearance is yet again described as “the black frost of outsideness.…

Poetry Analysis: Ted Hughes’ “Hawk Roosting”

February 22, 2015 / rukhaya / 1 Comment

“Hawk Roosting”, published in 1960,is included in Ted Hughes’s second book, Lupercal. The Hawk in Ted Hughes’ poem “Hawk Roosting” is power personified.The roosting of the hawk signifies its self-assertion. The very first word of the poem “I,” is a sign of the Supreme Ego. The hawk declares that he sits on top of the ‘wood’ that stands for his kingdom. He ‘eyes are closed in oblivion, for at the present, for him, only he exists. His world is limited between his hooked head and hooked feet. He is in ”Inaction’. For action does not define him, rather, he defines action. This is no falsifying dream, a castle bulit in the air, but the omnipresent truth. He dreams about “in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.” Therefore, it is not the basic necessity of killing and eating that concerns him, but the style of it.

Thus the hawk transforms into a metaphor of Supreme arrogance of Man where he is haunted by power. It echoes the Faustian Endeavor disregarding salvation, and Tughlaq ( Girish Karnad’s “Tughlaq”) who ventured to become another God. Aziz in the play “Tughlaq” stands as an aspect of Tughlaq when he asserts:” What’s the point in raping for sheer lust?…

Poetry Analysis: Thom Gunn’s “My Sad Captains”

February 21, 2015 / rukhaya / 0 Comments

In “My Sad Captains’, Gunn portrays the legends of history as the epitomes of determination but without any social inclination or purpose. Like stars in the sky, they continue to shine in the universe of history; but their existence serves no purpose. These sad captains thus thrive in a nihilistic arena were no meaningful role can be attributed to them. They are distant and disinterested as stars. The poem thus verges on Sartrean existentialism. They are in total opposition and contrast to the motorcyclists in Thom Gunn’s “On the Move” who found meaning in their attitude and the journey that they undertook. The title can be traced to Antony and Cleopatra. It echoes the predicament of Antony living for the sake of the present, without focusing towards the future. He is forced to move forward without having anything to look forward to; as he has lost the company of Cleopatra. The title is also significant as a captain is the leader of the ship; he steers all the people on board to their prescribed destination. Here, the captains are sad because they do not possess any practical value any longer.

The poet seems to suggest the randomness of thought and situation as he states that the stars began to appear one by one.…

Rukhaya M.K

A Literary Companion